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- Over a decade now, we
have been using business

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to achieve the three zeros

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set out by our co-founder,
Professor Yunus;

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zero poverty, zero unemployment,

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and zero net carbon emissions.

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To mark this important milestone,

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we want to take a moment to celebrate

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with some of our key partners

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who've helped us to get here.

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Without a doubt, one of
the most important partners

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is Boston Consulting Group.

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So I'm excited to welcome Wendy Woods,

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Vice Chair, Social Impact,

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Climate and Sustainability at BCG.

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And I'm just as excited

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to have our co-founder and
chairman, Professor Yunus

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and our CEO and other co-founder
Saskia Bruysten with us.

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Saskia, can you tell us a little bit

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about how this partnership
between YSB and BCG began

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and what were the main elements of it?

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- We've been able to work with
BCG now for over a decade.

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They've been helping us with
pro-bono consulting support

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but also with Sugonese people

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that have been working with us

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on a longer term basis

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and also here and there
have opened doors for us.

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- Wendy, can you think back

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on some of those moments of
positive impact hopefully,

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or a win from the early days,

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maybe also the first
time you actually heard

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about this crazy idea of social business

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and what is significant
to you at that point?

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- As BCG, we're always
trying to figure out

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how to help our clients
be the leading edge.

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Be the leading edge in building

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the best businesses they can,

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but businesses that have
the best positive impact

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on the world.

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And Professor Yunus challenged

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our entire global partner group

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to think even more expansively

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and really push the boundaries

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on how we could unlock
more than we had before

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in that spirit of inclusion.

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- Professor Yunus, just to build on that,

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this is a big mission to achieve, right,

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to combine business with impact

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and at the same time also
influence how large companies,

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the corporate CEOs that Wendy talked about

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are operating and are
challenging their own companies

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to be more impactful.

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Where do you think we
stand today on that front?

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- It's just the opening.

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It's just the beginning.

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And that's where BCG comes out

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very important for us.

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How much we have achieved,

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this history will tell the
relationship that we built

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between our social business
initiatives with YSB

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and all the things that we have done.

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There are many, many
examples over the ten years.

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So ten years, we have come a long way.

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That's all I can say.

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And thank you, BCG.

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- How do you see the changes

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at BCG because of the partnership of YSB?

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What has changed for you personally?

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What has changed for the organization?

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- I think we've learned so
much from working with you

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and working with your
partners and the entrepreneurs

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and we've actually been
able to embed a lot of that,

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thinking within BCG.

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We are striving to make sure

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that we are taking a social inclusion

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a social impact lens, a frankly,

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a people lens in every
piece of work that we do,

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that we are putting an environmental

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and a net zero lens into
every piece of work we do.

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- I wanted to pivot to Saskia as well

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to understand how BCGs
work has impacted us.

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- We have always been very focused

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on measuring the social impact

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of our own portfolio
companies over the years,

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but one thing that BCG
developed together with us

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and that's always a co-creation process

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was actually, how do we
measure our impact of YSB

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on the portfolio companies?

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How we're supporting them?

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And we created kind of a spider diagram

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to be able to assess that,

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which has been very helpful for us

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and which we've been using ever since.

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- I was actually also
going to go a bit boldly

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into a bit of brainstorming

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on what we can do in the next ten years,

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maybe a question, what has to be done?

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That's the first thing,

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what has to be done in the business world

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and in the impact world.

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- So now the question is,

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how do we actually scale this up

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at a much more massive level

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to actually ensure that the normal economy

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doesn't just doesn't have

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that cute little thing on the side,

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but that social business

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becomes a much more mainstream
part of the economy.

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And that's really the challenge

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that we have for the next decade.

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- We have to do whatever
needed to be done right

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during the next ten years.

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And there also promoting,

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I keep reminding that we have to keep on

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creating companies, businesses,

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which will be three zero businesses.

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By every test that they
are three zero business.

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Corporate means three zero corporate.

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Business means three zero business.

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Zero net carbon emissions,

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zero wealth concentration,

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zero unemployment and all
this built into the business.

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We don't have to go and preach them,

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get designed like that,
it's three zero businesses.

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- I will certainly support
strongly the need for urgency,

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the need for scaling, and
the need for mainstreaming.

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I think that is tremendously important,

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to advancing, accelerating,
and solidifying

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and growing the progress
that we've had to date.

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The additional thing that I would just add

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is in getting to those three zeros,

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in getting to zero poverty,
zero unemployment, zero carbon.

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We know how to do a lot of that.

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And we can make tremendous progress

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just by with urgency
scaling and mainstreaming,

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but there's a piece of those problems

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that actually are really
sticky and really tough.

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And frankly, certainly on the carbon side,

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we don't have all the solutions for today

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and it's going to require
a lot of creativity.

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So my vision for our partnership

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is for us to continue

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to be really pushing that leading edge,

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really pushing the
creativity of the solutions

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and how you can bring
the partners together

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to unlock some of that creativity

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that helps us get not just
most of the way there,

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but all of the way there.

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- Thanks for joining today.

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And it's been a pleasure.